At very first it was Google who came up with Google Smart Glass then after a long gap Lenovo also announced of its upcoming Lenovo Smart Glass followed by China’s search giant Baidu who announced Baidu Eye a chinese smartglass to rival Google and now this time it was technology giant Sony who also announced its Smart Eyeglass in Tokyo, Japan on Friday, 19th September, 2014. The SmartEyeglass from Sony is a transparent lens eyewear that works by connecting with compatible Smartphones to superimpose information such as images, texts, and symbols, onto the user’s field of view. Only Smartphones having Android 4.1 or later will be compatible with the SmartEyeglass. Further, Android 4.3 or later is necessary in order to make use of the video functionality of the camera.

The SmartEyeglass will offer the users a diverse range of sensing technologies, which includes an accelerometer, brightness sensor, Gyroscope, a CMOS image sensor, microphone and an electronic compass. The SmartEyeglass makes use of the above mentioned features along with the GPS location information provided by the connected Smartphone, in order to give information most optimized to the user’s current circumstances.

Technical overview of the SmartEyeglass prototype

• Binocular see-trough eyewear display.
• Monochrome green colour.
• Maximum display brightness: 1000cd/m2.
• Embedded camera.
• Accelerometer, gyro, compass and brightness sensors.
• Microphone.
• Bluetooth v3.0.
• WiFi – 802.11b/g/n.
• Separate controller with touchpad along with power, navigation and camera buttons.

The technology giant has made use of its unique hologram optics technology in order to develop a phenomenal lens that can achieve high transparency of 85% and thickness of just 3.0 mm, all this has been made possible without the use of half mirrors that can act as obstruction in the user’s vision. The monochrome display of the SmartEyeglass makes sure that high luminance of up to 1,000 cd per meter square is achieved even when the energy consumption is lower than a color display. This high luminance and low energy consumption delivers a screen with clear readability to the user so that he/she can read text easily in a wide range of environments.

At the announcement, Sony also demonstrated some preloaded apps on the SmartEyeglass. A Localive app provides social feeds aggregation and distribution for surrounding local area whereas its-mo NAVI for SmartEyeglass app provides pedestrian navigation. Sony has also announced the availability of a dedicated SmartEyeglass Software Development Kit (Developer Preview) which would enable developers to think upon new and innovative ideas for creating scenarios where the device can be used. The kit will also boost the development of various applications. The kit comes with an emulator, sample code, tutorials to get started, In-depth developer guides, Design guidelines, API references, test instructions and Publishing guidelines.